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Sunday, July 19, 2015

So I thought you might all like some free stuff? I started a Teacher pay Teacher store in March this year and I have been busily adding new things that I think would be useful to French Immersion, FSL and French teachers and some things that are good for teachers at all levels.

I have some freebies for you below and I also wanted to give you the chance to win five paid products from my store for FREE! Entering is easy, just follow me on Teacher pay Teacher or follow this blog. You'll be first to know when I add new products and new freebies!

I will be drawing for a winner August 31st. Don't miss out on your chance!

One sample writing prompt that includes 3 versions.
Two versions have a word bank included and one only includes the image. This document also includes two pages of lined writing paper for those students who want to write more.

Page 3—Students color in shapes as directed and count the number of each shape type.
Page 4– Students cut and glue shapes into one of the two columns following the rule. They can cut out shapes on the bottom of the page or shapes from magazines.
Page 5– Students create their own sorting rule and sort shapes into the two categories. Again students can cut out shapes at the bottom or find shapes in magazines.

The 3 little pigs has always been one of my favorite units to teach in grade 1. The students have a lot of fun hearing and reading different versions of the story. They also love to rewrite this story. The last few years I have tried to do something different. I decided to see if we could use the three little pigs to teach a little science too.

On three little pigs day we sat down as a group and I introduced them to my little pig (a green piggy bank) and the big bad wolf (a hairdryer the first year, a large fan with wolf ears on it the second). I explained that we would be building a house for our pig that would protect him from the wolf.

We brainstormed materials that we had available on the board.

I had brought in hay and wood for the occasion. Other materials were things the students found around the classroom.

I asked each student to choose 1 material they would like to try to build with.

I limited groups to no more than 4 students per material. If students first choice was gone they simply chose something else.

We made a prediction chart and all voted on if we thought the house made of each material would fall or stand.

When we had decided on our materials everyone student individually took out their "Thinking book" and they had 15 minutes to come up with a sketch or plan for their material.

They then showed their ideas to the rest of the group and explained why they thought it would work. Students then worked together to decide on the best plan.

I gave the groups 40 minutes to build.

After that time we all looked at each others designs and returned to the prediction chart. We checked to see if we wanted to change any of our predictions based on the designs we saw.

Finally it was time to huff and puff and blow the houses down. Very exciting stuff!

We reflected on our designs talked about possible improvements.

We looked at our prediction chart and spend a little time in our thinking books recording what we had learned.

I loved this project and so did the students. It was fun to watch them think through a problem and work together to create something. The learning was varied and students all felt successful, even the ones whose houses fell.

What did I learn at school today? The three little pigs made a great jumping point to science concepts like force and motion and predicting. It made me look for other literature connections with science topics. Do you have a favorite story that you use to teach science? Have you done this with your students before?

Friday, July 17, 2015

Earth day is a great excuse to learn about all sorts of things. Conservation, recycling, reusing and reducing, humans effects on the natural environment and of course crafting and ingenuity.15 Fun things to do for earth day:1) Read - J'aime la terre by Todd Parr. 2) Draw tiny drawings on tiny pieces of paper. Don't forget to use both sides!3) Make junk statues out of materials that would normally be thrown out.4) Visit the recycling plant.5) Visit a local thrift store.6) Plan a playground clean-up.7) Try a Earth day Je lis et je dessine.8) Watch "Sid le Petit Scientist - Jour de la Terre" and do a soil exploration.9) Plan a sharing/caring swap. Have kids bring in items they no longer need from home. Students take turns choosing a new item that a friend has brought it. 10) Plan a clothing drive and donate to a local charity.11) Plant some seeds. Talk about the effects of plants on the environment.12) Pretend you are the earth. What would you want people to know? Write a persuasive poster to ask people to help you! Template here.13) Host a recycling relay race. Have students bring recyclables from home. Have students sort recycling by type and ask a parent to drop it off at the recyclers for you.14) Plan a maker day reuse it challenge. Have students try to come up with new uses for old junk.

15) Create recycle scrap paper collages. Use old paper and scraps from the year to create new and exciting art pieces.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

We are having lots of fun in grade 1 learning all about butterflies. The butterfly kit we ordered was very disappointing. All the caterpillars died and so we have been reading books, watching videos and making art to try and figure out what should have happened and what might have gone wrong.

In this video the photo and text explain the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. By watching this we were able to determine that we didn't have monarch butterflies in our classroom because the caterpillars look different.

This video from Ce n'est pas sorcier showed us that their are lots of different kinds of caterpillars and butterflies. It has some tricky language but some amazing images too. My students loved being able to see different types of caterpillars and butterflies up close. We also liked learning about how silk is made.

We also read lots of different kinds of books from the library about butterflies. They all seemed to tell us the same thing. Butterflies have a 4 part life cycle. We decided we would paint the life cycle. We painted one stage in each wing.

After we decided we would try and write about everything we learned. We used this template.

Click on image to see full document

What did I learn at school today? Even when disaster strikes I can make the best of it. The students were very excited to learn about butterflies and try and figure out what went wrong with our batch. They still learned about the needs of animals and about the life cycle. Has this kind of thing ever happened to you? What did you do?

Monday, April 20, 2015

Sight words are vital to unlocking reading for many students but finding fun ways to introduce them and to give students a chance to practice them can be challenging.

I usually introduce one new sight word a day. We then spend the day trying to spot the word when we are flipping through books or when Mme is reading or when we are walking around the school. Once we have a good collection of words under our belts we can start playing some games with them.

Whole Class Games:

Quiz, quiz trade:

Students each get one sight word. They partner up and show each other the word. Once they have read the word they trade and move on to a new partner.

Stand-up:

As we practice our word I will pick a "magic" word, letter or sound. When they hear it they stand-up. When the word is gone they sit back down.

Act it out:

When we read action words, students have fun acting out the word.

Silent Word/Sound:

When we read through the list students are told they can not read a certain word, or word containing a sound or letter.

Small Group Games:

Lots of different ways to play this game but this is one of my favorite versions. You can use popsicle sticks or cards. I get my students to fold a piece of paper in half, and then in half again. They unfold the paper and the creases make a border for their cards. They then put a word in each rectangle and the word boom on 1 of the rectangles. they cut them up and play with a partner. Great writing and reading practice.

Board Games:

There are a few games that you can use to reinforce sight words online. Here are a few in french that my students like. These are great for sending home for practice too.

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So what did I learn at school today? Sight word learning and practice doesn't have to be repetitive and boring. With a little creativity there are a ton of ways to play with words. What are your favorite sight word games?

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Using images as writing prompts is nothing new and some would argue that it is an old way of teaching that stunt student creativity and growth when writing. In my experience though a well used writing prompt activity can help students feel successful and give you some important assessment information that isn't tainted by wondering - is my student struggling with ideas, vocabulary or with writing in general?

One activity my students and I love to do together is an oral tell me more activity. I will show them a picture on the smartboard.

With this image I would tell students to tell their partners what they see. In the beginning students will always say "I see a dog" or "C'est un chien." I then challenge the students to tell each other more. After a few minutes I stop students and we discuss our ideas. Slowly we build from "It's a dog" to "It's a little brown dog with big ears sitting on a blue boat. He is waiting for someone." I then ask questions like "And then?" "Why?" "What happened next?' Over time we build vocabulary and create great adventure stories build around these silly images. Often students will use the ideas from these oral sessions to go write their own stories later.

In my classroom I also have a bucket of laminated photos that students can use as writing prompts when they are stuck for ideas or need inspiration for writing.

Another tool I use that is even more structured are pages that contain a picture and some vocabulary words about the picture beside the image. Learning to write, especially in another language like French can be challenging for students. Sometimes giving students a picture and vocabulary is very freeing for students. They can concentrate on writing rather than coming up with an original idea, finding the vocabulary they need, Students can produce interesting, unique stories that they would normally find difficult to put together independently. It is a great way to help give students who need a little extra help a boost.

I still like to give my students choice when we do these kinds of writing activities so I usually have 2 or 3 options for pages with images and vocabulary bank. Here are a few theme specific writing prompt activities I created for my students that you might like.

So what did I learn at school today? Writing prompts are still a useful and usable tool in our classroom. They can be used to build vocabulary, expand story telling skills and build imagination. They can help kids get down to the business of writing more quickly and for many students they are freeing rather then being restrictive. Do you use writing prompts with your students? How do you build vocabulary and writing confidence with your students?

So the Ipads are gone from my classroom and have been replaced with 12 shiny new Samsung Galaxy tablets. First order of business was to see which of the things that I was able to so with my students on the Ipad, I could still do on the tablet. Figuring out how to do listen to reading was top of my list.

There are many individual books available in the Google Play store. Most of the free books do contain advertising or have limited features.

Although free options do exist I decided that for simplicity and to save time and money it was best to pay for a subscription service instead. I settled on Playtales Gold . This service costs $25 a year. They have a free version but the advertising is so frequent that it isn't worth looking at. We chose Playtales Gold because it offers books in multiple languages and I am at a bilingual school. By selecting language from a drop down I can limit students to only reading French books and our English teachers can still use the app with their students using by changing the language to English.
I also love that I get to pick which books I download on each tablet and which books kids have access to on their bookshelf. This allows me to download books appropriate to students levels. Our tablets are numbered and I can ask students to choose a tablet at their reading/listening level if I choose.

A note about French apps:Just like with the ipad when you change to language of your device you also change the language of many of the apps you install. Some apps will appear to be in English but once you change the language in the settings you can use them in French too.

What I learned at school today? The switch from apple to android is not going to be a problem for Daily 5 listen to reading. There are free apps out there and apps like Playtales make it easy for my students to access a large variety of books easily. My next step is to try and figure out how to get kids on youtube safely. Are you using listen to reading apps on the android? What is your favorite? Any advise about how to connect to youtube without exposing students to adds and limiting content?

Friday, March 6, 2015

First things first.... How do I turn this thing on?! I can use an Ipad, I can use this thing right? The reality however is that you can't expect this device to behave like an Ipad there are some differences and they have tripped me up as I am trying to learn this device.

I admit the setup for my teacher tablet was fairly easy. The tablet talks you through most of it. It helps if you already have a google account you are using. If you don't already have one you can set one up here or follow the directions on your new tablet. Learning to use it however was a little trickier.

Here is one video I used to help learn how to use the device:

Some tips.

1) If there is no back button on an app to get you back to the last screen us the return arrow on the bottom of your tablet.

2) Double clicking the home screen

3) The google search box is always on the bottom right side of the home screens. You can use it to search the web but you can also use it to find apps on your device.

My advice? Unbox your device, run through the set-up and then watch the video above. Pause and try each new trick he teaches you along the way. Get comfortable with the navigation.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

We had a lot of fun in grade one this week. We made long snowman using our names. I got the ideas from Art with Ms. James.

First students had to plan out their snowman. We wrote their names in our journals and counted the number of letters. We then added + 1 because they needed to add a ball for the head. We drew that many balls on the page and wrote our names.... and added a little face too. We knew that each piece of paper had 4 snowballs on it. We had to find out how many sheets of paper we would need to complete the project. You can download circle template here.

We then created our snowmen. We cut off any excess purple paper. Once we were done making them we all worked together to sort them in order of length. We noticed that even though some snowmen had the same amount of circles they were not the same length. We realized that the reason was that some students had overlapped their circles and some didn't. We decided that to make a good measurement we needed to make sure we didn't overlap our measuring tools because it changed the measurement.

What did I learn at school today? Kids sometimes learn best when you let them muddle their way though. This activity was a great way to get kids to think through a problem and come to their own conclusions. I'd told them many times that in order to measure we needed to make sure that the items didn't overlap but some still struggled with this. Once they saw the snowmen and worked through the problem themselves it was much easier for them to understand.